United Nations Blog

2009-12-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

Introduction

We have talked about the ecological label – cruelty free, which is related to anti animal testing, in the last blog. In this blog, we are going to further expand the topic of anti animal testing to animal right and business ethics. As this topic is so broad that we can’t analyze all the voice of animal right from both advocates and defenders, we are going to use Mars, one of the most successful global brands from US, as an example to get a deeper insight.

What is Ethical Dilemma?

A dilemma is a problem offering at least two solutions or possibilities, of which none are practically acceptable; one in this position has been traditionally described as "being on the horns of a dilemma", neither horn being comfortable; or "being between a rock and a hard place", since both objects or metaphorical choices being rough. (Wikipedia)

Doug Wallace, Twin Cities-based consultant, explains that one knows when they have a significant ethical conflict when there is a presence of

(a) Significant value conflicts among different interests,

(b) Real alternatives that are equally justifiable,

Simply put, ethics involves learning what is right or wrong, and then doing the right thing – but “the right thing” is not nearly as straightforward as conveyed in a great deal of business ethics literature. (2)

What is the Dilemma of Animal Right?

l From the advocates of animal right:

Animals should have their own right since they are valuable life as we are. They can feel painful as we do. They should not be killed or treated cruelly for human’s own benefits without their consent.

l From the defenders of animals right:

Human is the “superanimal”. We can have the control over the other living things. Defenders of animal rights believe that fixed ethical rules place limits on our treatment of animals: there are some things that we are not permitted to do to an animal whatever the circumstances.

Here are some figures that show us how popular of using animals.

Distribution of the purposes for animal use

Distribution of vertebrate animal species used for research, testing and education

Development of animal use in the 20th century

Reference: http://www.nature.com/gt/journal/v11/n1s/full/3302371a.html

Is it ethical for business to use animals to make profits? The Mars case may help us to think!!!

What did Mars do to Animal?

Mars, Incorporated is one of the largest food manufacturers in the world and operates in six business segments: Chocolate, Petcare, Wrigley, Food, Drinks, and Symbioscience.

We believe that many people in the world, even in Hong Kong, have tried at least one of its products. It is famous and popular in the world. However, animal right advocates are claiming that Mars is using animals, mainly rats and rabbits, as the testers of its products’ ingredients.

The most recent claim was -- Mars funded a deadly experiment on rats to determine the effects of chocolate ingredients on their blood vessels. Experimenters force-fed the rats by shoving plastic tubes down their throats and then cut open the rats' legs to expose an artery, which was clamped shut to block blood flow. After the experiment, the animals were killed. Mars has also funded cruel experiments in which mice were fed a candy ingredient and forced to swim in a pool of a water mixed with white paint. The mice had to find a hidden platform to avoid drowning, only to be killed and dissected later on. In yet another experiment supported by Mars, rats were fed cocoa and anesthetized with carbon dioxide so that their blood could be collected by injecting a needle directly into their hearts, which can lead to internal bleeding and other deadly complications.

We may know more the animal experiments of Mars here:

http://www.marscandykills.com/experiments.asp

Mars= Unethical or ethical?

Ethics is a human invention, designed for our needs and purposes. In the animal world such a notion does not exist. Since we are much advanced than the animals do, we are able to control them without asking for their willingness?

According to the United Nations, people can’t be killed, exploited, cruelly treated, intimidated, or imprisoned without good reason. That is, people should have their right to live in peace.

Also, the United Nations has clearly stated that basic rights apply to everyone. It is because we should all be able to experience our own life regardless of our differences. Our value as individuals arises from this capacity to experience life, not because of any intelligence or usefulness to others. Every person has an inherent value, and deserves to be treated with respect in order to make the most of their unique life experience.

There is no doubt that animals experience a life. Like us, animals can feel pain and fear, but also excitement and satisfaction. Close contact with animals shows that they look forward to some events, and can clearly get a lot of enjoyment from their lives, like eating favourite food, or interacting with others.

It is no doubt that animals don't have the same abilities as us. They can't talk, write or drive. But can we say that humans who can’t do these things have no value and no rights? Of course not!!! It is because those people still experience a life. We don't ask how intelligent a person is before we decide whether to eat them or experiment on them. It is exactly the same as the ways we treat animals. We are different, but we are both experiencing our life.

If human should be respected, animals should be respected as well. It is because both of us have inherent value. So not only people can’t be killed, exploited, cruelly treated, intimidated, or imprisoned without good reason, but also the animals can’t be treated like that.

Since people think that animals have their right to live as human do, there are many people say that Mars is unethical to do these kinds of cruel experiments. They love chocolate but hate buying from a murderer. They believe better tests can be made, even not so harmful to animals. They will stop buying from Mars until it gives up using animals in its product tests.

There is an anti-Mars video:

However, on the other hand, people who are against animal right claim that human is the “superanimal” who can control everything as human can “think” but animals can’t. We can decide what can benefit to the world but what can’t.

Some of the ethical issues about animals are whether we should eat them, should we kill them to use their fur, or should we use them as subjects for experiments? The defenders think that it is impossible to stop using animals, especially in the poor and developing countries. People in poor countries have to kill or use animals to survive, for example, animals can be their food, can help farming or animal skin can be used to make clothes. In poor countries, animal is the basic of survival. If people there treat animal right same as the human right, all people there die.

What about in the more developed countries? There are groups who worry about protecting the rights of animals only in the rich countries as they are able to produce substitutes to replace using animals. However, even the people there can find substitutes of animals, they can avoid using animals in all situation, such as people still need to kill animals for food. It is nothing wrong to eat something that is under human’s level in the food chain. It is ok for human to eat animals which just like it is ok for a tiger to eat the other weaker animals.

Also, there are many benefits of using animals to do science research, like,

1. Medical research using animals has prolonged the lives of millions of people.

2. Improving the health and welfare of entertainment, recreational, sport, and service animals, and of animals used to provide therapeutic support.

3. Improving the health, welfare and productivity of farm animals and other production animals.

4. Finding better ways to preserve, protect and manage a range of animal species to maintain a balance that is ecologically stable and well adapted to the environment.

5. Developing more humane and effective pest control methods to protect endangered animals and plants from the species that threatens them and to prevent damage to the environment.

6. Broadening the foundations of biological science, including our knowledge and understanding of life processes in all animal species.

(http://www.adelaide.edu.au/ANZCCART/humane/benefit.html)

So people think that Mars is ethical since it uses animals in research or in other fields because they just make decision by using the utilitarian approach. (A utilitarian approach is making ethical decision focuses on taking the action that will result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people.) (3) We want to ensure the well-being of the “superanimals” and keep the world developing. If human is the first priority in the world, then animals, which are in the lower priority, should be scarified.

Assumption on human nature

So is Mars ethical or not? Do we need to maintain animal right in order to be ethical? We may make the assumption on human nature before giving out our own opinion of the dilemma.

Thousand years ago, there was a famous educator in China—Mencius (孟子) claimed that moral is the main difference between human and animals. Human, are born to be moral. Here, we assume that human are born to be basically moral, whereas basically moral, but not completely moral, means people are moral in general situation, but we will become less moral or even immoral when necessary.

If you are interested in the views of Mencius in details, you may click:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mencius/#3

http://www.iep.utm.edu/mencius/#H5

What is the position of United Nations take?

Since we assume human are basically moral, so we assume human perform ethically in many kinds of situation. But, in order to survive, we are flexible to change when we need. That is, we will treat animals fairly and kindly, we will let them have the basic right as we do; but we will give up being moral if our well-being and life are going to be negatively affected.

Whether we are from the developed or developing country, we know that animals are experiencing their valuable life as human do. If we can find possible alternatives to replaces using animal right, we are willing to protect the right of animals. For example, if there is farming machine for a farmer in a poor country, he would rather use the machine rather than a cow. (It is an alternative but not a possible alternative, since the poor farmer may not be able to buy an expensive machine.)

So what about Mars? Base on our assumption, Mars is also basically moral. There are five principles that Mars use as the fundamental of the business. They are

1. Quality

2. Responsibility

3. Mutuality

4. Efficiency

5. Freedom

(http://www.mars.com/global/who-we-are/the-five-principles.aspx)

The mutuality means is about how to create shared benefit to both Mars and the other stakeholders. So we can see that Mars is not immoral. It does not only care of it own benefit, but also care about the society.

Moreover, there are many ethical programmes which are held by Mars. The programmes focus on the sustainable development of different aspects, like natural environment, developing countries, children, and of course, animals. We may know the details of its ethical programmes here:

http://www.mars.com/global/commitments.aspx.

If Mars is unethical and immoral, will it does so many ethical programmes for the world? Some may say what Mars does is only one of the ways to market itself and to promote its ethical image. It is because “a company’s reputation today goes beyond products, services and financial performance.” “Organizations face increasingly higher expectations from the general public across the different aspects of their business.” (4) Ok, let’s assume Mars put so much effort on the ethical programmes because it is part of its marketing strategies. Then there is a question that why does it use animals for testing? This will absolutely destroy the effort and resources it spent on the ethical marketing strategies. Mars can be a global company as it has global business sense in this extremely competitive world food industry. Will it do something so stupid that can totally damage its healthy image if there are other possible alternatives but not using animals?

Let’s back to our dilemma of animal right. We, United Nations, do agree that we should try to protect the animals and we should treat animals with humanity. But our question is to what extent we should take care of the animal right. We can’t all to be vegetarians because we don’t want to kill animals. We can use animals within a clear and universal set of ethical guidelines. Using animals need not be inhumane if we avoid cruelty. Therefore, we would advocate animal welfare instead of animal right.

Animal welfare is to ensure the humane treatment of animals like a local humane animal shelter; whereas, animal rights is to seek equal rights for animals with humans to prevent people from using or owning animals in any way. For example, Mars can use animals for testing if it can provide the proper care and management for all animals involved and follow the code of ethic.

To be honest, it is impossible for us to treat animals as equal as we do to human. For example, we can imprison a person who kills the other person; but we can’t imprison a cat which kills the other cat. We do think that what we should try our best to take care of the animals’ well being and respect their life, but not treat them as human.

Approaches to Ethical Decision Making

On the customers’ aspect, there is increasing number of people assert that businesses are making profit from using their countries’ and the world’s resources these businesses owe their countries and world to work to improve society. (5)

On the business’ aspect, executives rank reputation as a top driver behind their commitment to corporate citizenship. (4)

As the importance of reputation and business ethic is increasing, we are now discuss four methods of making ethical decision which are from the Frank’s reference article (3). None of them are suitable for everyone, you just need to choose your most preferred one. We hope you can make a decision that is right for you by considering these four approaches. Here, we may also use Mars as example to see how Mars can be more ethical under different approaches.

1. Utilitarian

The utilitarian approach to ethical decision making focuses on taking the action that will result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Apply to Mars’ Case: Whether Mars adopts using animal or other scientific methods in its researches and tests depends on the number of people can be benefited. If using animal is the best way that can ensure the health of greatest number of its customers; if using animals is so benefit that is good for most of its stakeholders, then Mars will use it.

2. Moral rights

The moral rights approach concerns itself with moral principles, regardless of the consequences. Under this view, some actions are simply considered to be right or wrong.

Apply to Mars’ Case: If using animal is immoral, all the other reasons that tell Mars should use animals are not enough to persuade Mars to adopt to use animals for business purpose.

3. Universalism

The universalism approach to ethical decision making is similar to the Golden Rule. This approach has two steps.

You determine whether a particular action should apply to all people under all circumstances.
You determine whether you would be willing to have someone else apply the rules to you.

Apply to Mars’ Case: Mars would think if using animals is right for Mars and everyone. Will someone be justified if he or she use animals, while Mars stands form the point of view of the group that support animal right. Under this approach, Mars won’t use animals since this issue is not right to everyone.

4. Cost-benefit

Under cost-benefit approach, you balance the costs and benefits of taking versus not taking a particular action. If the cost is greater of not taking, you will take it.

Apply to Mars’ Case: Under this approach, Mars will make decision after calculating the cost and benefits of both practices. Mars will choose the one that provides more benefits. In this case, Mars may think about how much profit will lose because of the reduction in the number of customers due to keeps on using animals. And compare this loss with the benefits it get from animals testing.

Influence on Hong Kong and Chinese Culture

Mars is one of the successful global brands from US. Executive VP Humane Society of the United States; Past President, Fund for Animals; Board member Institute for Animals and Society: "..your everyday meat-eaters and cosmetics users; they are not vivisectors, they are not slaughterhouse operators, and they have basic feelings of compassion. But they are accustomed to eating, wearing, and using animal products, and they need to be convinced to give them up. They can be won over lowly but surely they are being won over?"

In the development of their snackfood and human food and drink products, as well as their products for dogs, cats, birds and horses, they do not undertake, support or sponsor research that harms animals. The action of Mars brings influence to other global brands.

As we know, the main industry and income source of China is agriculture. People use animals to help them farming and animals are the main dishes of their meal. No one have the ideas of animal are valuable life as human. But some developed countries such as United States are value the concept of animals right. Since China is now being a developing country, so they become aware of the concept of animals right. For example, in Hong Kong, there are some organizations that protect animal rights. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was first formed by a group of volunteers. Animals are living creatures which like humans, are able to feel pain, hunger and thirst. We should not inflict any suffering upon our fellow creatures just because they can't speak. Their aims are "to promote kindness and to prevent or suppress cruelty to animals. Our mission through the millennium is "To promote kindness to animals, to protect their health and welfare, to prevent cruelty and through education, to inspire in the community a deep respect for life so that all living creatures may live together in harmony."

Also, there is a Hong Kong Animal Adoption Centre which formed by a group of animal lovers. In the past, they have saved animals and have arranged to have them staying in different warm and loving foster homes, giving the abused and abandoned animals a chance to get proper treatment, have them desexed before putting their pictures up in different pet websites for the purpose of having them adopted.

Also, for the part of identity, some people may think that human beings are super animals because we can think and do lots of things that animals can’t do. So we are superior to animals and able to control them. They are not supporting to the ideas of animal rights. But in the western countries, people think that all people are equal and should enjoy same rights such as Male and Female. Also, they think that animal should deserve rights as human because we are all valuable life. This idea begins to affect us because Hong Kong is an international city that integrated with western culture.

Moreover, “some research shows that the general public tends to rate makers of consumer products, computers and beverages higher along social dimensions. Industries that fall below the global average include banking, finance, oil and gas, utilities and telecommunications. Reputation Institute, which measures corporate reputation in more than 25 countries annually, notes that the U.S. public put a higher premium on ethics and governance practices.”(4) It showed that the general public also aware of the ethical issues. Undeniably, protecting animal right in products is part of the marketing strategies. For example, Mars’s products also emphasis on protect the animals. It can help the company to build a position reputation. This business culture also brings influence to companies in China and Hong Kong. “In China, the government and consumers are the only two external stakeholders seriously influencing corporate responsibility efforts.” (6) Since consumers are one of the stakeholders in China, the products of company will change according to the preference of consumers. For example, Haier is a famous brand in China and they become aware of ethical issues that help their company to build positive image. It showed that this business culture of western countries also brings influence to China and Hong Kong.

Besides, there is an International Animal Rights Day (IARD)-10th December. The goal of this historic campaign is to build on the recognition of human rights, and persuade humanity that kindness and respect is due to all sentient creatures. The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights - that animals have a right to life free from deliberately inflicted pain, suffering, exploitation and death - has been signed by large and small organizations representing hundreds of thousands of people in: the UK, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA. The concept of animal rights has permeated into culture of different countries. It can facilities the intercultural communication.

Suggestion

We got some suggestions for all parties to improve the dilemma of animal right. All suggestions base on the assumption that people are basically moral.

Government

People are moral when they have possible alternatives of being moral. So government can

1. Educate public that there are many others choices to avoid using animals. Also, educate public that what is ethical and unethical. Since human are basically moral, we will avoid doing something that we know that it is unethical.

2. Set up clear guidelines and law for public and businesses, so that everyone is clear what can do and what can’t do. Law and guideline can limit human’s behaviors, our choice of being unethical is limited, on the other hand, our choice of being ethical is relatively more. So there is a greater chance for human to act morally.

3. Should treat animal cruelty to be a more serious crime with heavier punishment and penalty in order to let every one of us to know that it is not correct to abuse animal.

4. Hold more activities about protection of animal. It is hoped that by educating the students at their tender age would prevent them from abusing animal in the future. For example, government sponsors partial transportation or entrance fee for secondary and primary schools to organize some field trips for visiting Hong Kong animals. I can suggest three places that are worth a visit. First one is Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens which is located on the northern slope of Victoria Peak. Second is Reptile House in Tuen Mun Park. Third is Wetland Park in Tin Shui Wai. It can provide a trip for students from Hong Kong Island to News Territories. Entering to Wetland Park need to pay entrance fee, but it is exactly worth paying that. It is because different species of birds of passage regularly stay at the Wetland Park sometimes. Students go there can recognize more about animals’ living. I realize that students would raise concern if they gain their own experience by themselves and recognize further information of animals. It can be lesser harm animals, but love them.

Organization

1. Provide training to the staff. The ethics programme is essentially useless unless all staff members are trained about what it is, how it works and their roles in it. (7)

2. Set up code of conduct to the employees.

3. Private companies can raise the popularity by sponsoring these activities.

Customers

1. People should let the businesses know what they think, express what they need and what they want to the businesses. Since businesses are willing to follow and fulfill customers’ desire. They may write letter, send E-mail, or even group together when most of them do not satisfy about the company’s policy.

Reference from Frank

(1) Complete Guide to Ethics Management: An Ethics Toolkit for Managers – Ethics Tools: Resolving Ethical Dilemmas

(2) Complete Guide to Ethics Management: An Ethics Toolkit for Managers – What is Business Ethics?

(3) Articles: Business Ethics: Approach to Ethical Decision Making

(4) Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship

(5) Complete Guide to Ethics Management: An Ethics Toolkit for Managers –Business Ethics is Now a Management Discipline

(6) Article from BSR

(7) Complete Guide to Ethics Management: An Ethics Toolkit for Managers – Ethics Tools:Training

Other Reference

(1) http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~mbernste/ethics.treatmentofanimals.html

(2)http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/413276/the_use_of_animals_for_medical_research.html?cat=53

(3) http://www.adelaide.edu.au/ANZCCART/humane/benefit.html

(4) http://www.swaebr.org/Essay/1997/Phx97-win.htm#The%20Benefits%20of%20Using%20Animals%20In%20Medical%20Research

(5) http://www.cfact.org/a/370/Crucial-difference-in-animal-welfare-and-rights

Thanks for you guys comment on blog 3

2009-11-18T06:34:00.000-08:00

Firstly, I am appreciated all visitors provided useful opinions on our blog.

After I read the comments, so many visitors start to concern animal rights and consider the value of animals in the world. I am so glad that you guys have an new insight on animal testing and this is what we want to do indeed. It takes a considerably long period of time to inculcate more knowledge of animal testing into our minds. Even though we are human being, we no need to concern other lives around the world. However, some visitors said it is an unethical issue. We need to keep and save animals although those animals that use on testing are minority of animals. Your opinions encourage us to have further thinking that as human being, we have responsibility of saving the lives in the world.

Secondly, I want to say that our blog is really educated. Thanks Gaargi give this comment. From your point of view, you said our blog is boring ... may be it is really boring for you. We will create a more funny blog next time.

Finally, we are also appreciated visitors have so many positive comments on our video. It is really encourage us to do better.

Hope to see all guys keeping commenting on our blog.

Cruelty Free

2009-11-04T06:47:00.000-08:00

Background:

According to Mitch Baranowski, founding partner of BBMG, ‘‘trustmarks help ensure companies follow best practices by setting clear and transparent standards. They serve as important proof points for overall brand messages and stories. And they can provide an objective, third-party stamp of approval that demonstrates how companies are following through on their social and environmental claims.”
(reference reading: http://greenercomputing.com/print/27787 print/27787)

Actually, the ecology label acts as signals that transitted the promotion messages to the consumers. For example, the label of ‘recyclable’ promote the message of eco-awareness. Also, it acts as the clear stardand for the company to follow, like the label of ‘Cruelty free’, the products of the companies that having this label cannot use animals testing.

Nowadays, many people are unaware of the ideas of animals testing. They are unaware that hundreds of thousands of animals across the world still endure painful experiments to test cosmetics, toiletries, household products and their ingredients. This label – Go Cruelty Free aims to drive animal testing out of the cosmetics and household products industries altogether.

Social cause:

In fact, many companies such as Loreal and Max Factor use animal laboratory testing to test their porducts. The purpose of the testing is to test the safety of the ingredients of the products to human beings. But the testing cause pain or even death to the animals. Animal testing includes mices, rabbits, monkeys, dogs, etc. The procedures of animal testing are painful and cruel but they did it without any anesthesia. For instance, they would drop chemical corrosive substances to the eye of rabbits. This may cause bleeding and even blindness to the rabbits. Animals are innocent but they have no chance to resist.

From the findings, it showed that the Lethal Dosages tests are fatal to the animals. In these test, animals are forced to consume poisonous substances through inhalers, injection, or stomach tubes until 50% of them die. Other reactions to the tests include vomiting, skin eruptions, convulsions, paralysis, and bleeding from the eyes, nose, or mouth. The amount of substance will kill most of the animals. It is really unethical and inhumane to the animals.

Actually, there are many other testing methods that are more reliable and less expensive. For example, we can use computer and mathematical methods on human genes or Neutral Red Uptake Test. Also, the manufacturers can use the ingredients that have been use for a long time, and likely to be safe. The European Union has already gone cruelty-free since March 11, 2009 by banning animal testing for cosmetics and the sale of cosmetics that used animal testing. It is because many companies realized that the European abhor the idea of animals testing. So the company would present their product consistent to the intention of consumers.

How it works?

“Cruelty free” is promoting the message of anti-animal testing. This logo appears on the comestic and household products that the ingredients are not animal testing. The use of this label can ensure the consumers to easily identify the products as cruelty free. The Co-operative Group is working in partnership with the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) to drive animal testing out of the household products industry. There are schemes which called the Humane Cosmetics Standard (HCS) and the Humane Household Products Standard (HHPS) to prove that the companies are no longer conducts animals testing for their cosmetics and toiletries products. It sets a clear standard for the companies to follow.

Impacts:

The “Go Cruelty Free” label can promote the message of anti-animals testing. Animals are valuable life same as human beings. They should have the right to live. The promotion of anti-animals testing can develop the right value that treating animals with respect deserve our attention. ‘Animals should be treated humanely because they are living breathing just as we are,’ by Carl Riseley from Australian Idol. It can draw the attention from people that all over the world to concern this issue. Besides, it can persuade the consumers to buy cruelty free products such as naturally produced organic skincare products. We can help the animals and save their lives simply by doing this. So we take action without hesitation.

Video message

Here is the link of our video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3dfa17hGSY

Choosing non-animal testing or organic products
There are many products in market without animal testing, such as those from The Body Shop, Decleor, H2O plus and so on. These products normally use organic and natural materials as ingredients. However, it is only a part of the rest of products around the world that so many companies and brand names still use animals to test their products. Our Video shows that how animals are ill-treated by human being. In order to help animals not to be tested, first step we have to do which is to stop choosing products with animal testing. No matter how effective it is or how successful of changing the decision of unethical companies, we basically take a little step forward that is better than none. Actually, Hong Kong people have awareness of using and buying organic products, but the reason behind using this kind of organic products is the consideration on whether it is healthy or not. I confidently say that almost all of the Hong Kong people have no idea of cruelty-free label and even non-animal testing products. It is time to waken Hong Kong people that animals suffer and get hurt seriously.
Choosing organic products as substitution of animal testing products have so many benefits. More importantly, we save million of thousands of animals’ life. As we mentioned in the video, both human being and animals’ life are valuable. We need to cherish any movable organism in the earth.

Why are organic alternatives more expensive?

1. To believe organic product is conducive to good health

Organic food is better for you and your family. It contains more vitamins, minerals, enzymes and taste than intensively farmed produce. It is also free from enzymes and taste than intensively farmed produce. It is also free from insecticides, pesticides, flavorings, colorings, fertilizers and so on. Because of the need of consumers, retailers charge a higher price on organic product.

2. Non-mass production

Another reason why organic food is expensive to buy than intensively farmed food is that chemical ingredients, such as pesticides and fertilizers are designed to make food cheaper to produce. The chemical designers’ remit was to make mass production of food cheaper.

3. Maintain livelihood of farmers

Because of less chemical ingredients, farmers have to pay much more money on eliminate pests and time on growing a field of crop without fertilizers. As intensively farmed produce with fertilizers use lesser time than organic produce, the longer growing season of organic produce cause lesser harvest. Therefore, farmers have to raise price to maintain cost of daily lives. Otherwise, lowering prices could threaten the livelihood of the farmers.

4. True costs on organic foods

It has an ethical responsibility to sell organic foods for their true costs. The real cost of organic production which is generally smaller scale and more labor intensive, sometimes with smaller crop yields. Farmers also have to convert their land to organic production over a period of time, and as organic farming relies on crop rotation, almost 25 percent of land probably is left to lie fallow at any one time to increase natural soil fertility.

Concerning animal rights and increase awareness of cruelty-free
Video shows that animals are controlled by human beings. They have no choice when they are caught and selected. In Hong Kong, society for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCA) has been established. In fact, this organization concerns animal and help save animals, such as animals rescue, veterinary clinics, animals training, desexing animals and so on. Even though SPCA mentions about cruelty at animals in official website, but the animals that SPCA concerns are ill-treated by their owners, it is not related to animal testing. The animals are caught to be tested by strangers are not concerned by SPCA. Therefore, it is obviously not enough and unrelated to animal testing. In Japan, there is an organization specially concerns on anti-animal testing, like JAVA. Unfortunately, we can’t find any organization or activities that are related to anti-animal testing. As a Hong Kong people, I suggest that SPCA create similar department to encourage people not to use products with animal testing. Our video hope to provide an insight on increasing awareness of cruelty-free in the mind of Hong Kong people.

The attitude of a animal lover towards animals is in start contrast with that of a non-animal lover in Hong Kong. Some treat their animal as beloved, like a new-born baby or affiliate. They bring their pets outside everyday, even some crazier animal lovers put their beloved pets in pram. It is absolutely true!!! It is common that Hong Kong people own pets instead of having babies nowadays and put pets in pram like a baby. Oh my god !!! I must realize they are crazy and abnormal but as the view of an animal lovers, they realize that it is an expression of love. Some only treat animals are less valuable than human being, like me. There is no other animals other human being which can supersedes the position of human being because we possess wiseness, culture and thinking.

Emphasizing on inner beauty
Basically, it is impossible to require Hong Kong girls to give up using cosmetic products as almost all of the girls rely on cosmetic when they work, go to school and shopping. Our video suggests female no need to give up any cosmetic products, on the contrary, they should be vigilant when choosing cosmetics. Actually, both females and all human beings need to take responsibility for choosing non-animal testing products. It is because household products use animals to test their products as well, such as shampoo. Therefore, our video mainly focuses not only on raising the concern of female but also people coming from all walks of life. I want to say that inner beauty is the most important.

Rhetorical strategies
In order to rise awareness of cruelty-free in Hong Kong, we have to do promotion to let people have further ideas of what cruelty free is. When we start to do this project, we and other students actually have no idea about the use of animal testing before cosmetic and even household products are on sale. Therefore, minority of residents in Hong Kong know the label of cruelty-free. We have some ideas of promoting cruelty-free that focus on consumers, teenagers and students.

Focus on consumers
To hold an activity of making DIY soap in supermarkets regularly, such as wellcome and ParkNshop that attracts attention of consumers. When they want to buy cosmetic and household products, they would consider whether choosing organic products or not. Making DIY soap by using organic materials is an example of using non-animal testing product. Teaching consumers how to make their own soap can prevent them from buying animal testing products. Moreover, it is able to raise awareness of consumers that to stick a small notification near to goods shelves providing information as reference to consumers for selecting cosmetic products.

Focus on teenagers
Also, to hold a drama in Mong Kok which is a crowd shopping places in Hong Kong every day. Peoples play a role of animals that are treated brutally. Pictures and actions are more easily to raise awareness rather than using millions of articles as they transmit message directly. Also, it is because there are so many different Hong Kong people, especially teenagers go to Mong Kok in a day. Message of awareness of cruelty-free can be transmitted faster. Besides, we can cooperate with non-profit organization, such as YMCA of Hong Kong and BGCA of Hong Kong. Both the above non-profit organizations are famous in Hong Kong that specially provides service for teenagers. To cooperate with popular local non-profit organization, we can provide further information of animal rights for children and teach them how to protect and cherish animals through mini-game and visitation. For example, showing both normal and lovely animal pictures and animals who suffer from animal testing photos to them and organize a field trip to visit society for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCA). All we need to do is to provide a concept to children and teenagers to let them know household and cosmetic products around them are tested by ill-treating animals in the world.

Focus on students
In university, we can cooperate with student union of eight universities, such as HKU, CUHK and so on to transmit message of cruelty-free toward students. We can organize an exhibition to show pictures or videos of animal testing and provide a list of companies or brand name using animals to test their products in universities. Through showing pictures, majority of students understand that what cosmetic and household is still using animals testing. In secondary schools, we can provide a seminar of introducing cruelty-free or the concept of animal testing to students. I think it surely can be accepted by the principal as it is a good topic of Liberal Studies. As the education system of secondary school is changed soon, Liberal Studies is a obligatory subject in the future. Moreover, as Hong Kong children will enjoy free-education for twelve years instead of previous nine years of free education, it is a good chance for transmitting awareness of cruelty-free to students. We should grab this golden opportunity to promote cruelty-free to students. Regardless of universities or secondary students, both are potential consumers in the future. Therefore, we have to provide information to students when they are still young.

Altruism is…
1. Loving others as oneself.
2. Behaviour that promotes the survival chances of others at a cost to ones own.
3. Self- sacrifice of the benefit of others.
(Refer to the article that from Dr. Kuo Frank Yu: What is Altruism?)

Motivation is…
The activation or energization of goal-oriented behavior. Motivation may be internal or external. (Wikipedia)

Are you willing to be the Altruist? It is not an easy question to answer as you may think how much you have to scarify if you say yes. We know that you will give help if you are motivated. We know because we are human as well. It is not selfish; it is part of human being. After watching our video and reading our blog, we believe you want to give some help to the animals, but the problem is how much you have to give and are you able to give. To be honest, you may loss a few but the animal will have much a better life. Trust us, everyone is able to protect the animals with a little of scarified.

Alternative to animals testing
Besides using animals for testing, there are many alternatives so that we can still enjoy the safe products but without harming the animals. It is a win-win situation, we can protect the animals but scarcity less.

1. Alternative irritancy tests

Many different in vitro (test tube) systems have been suggested as alternatives to animal irritancy tests. The following are only a few examples.

Eytex™
1. This test for eye irritancy uses a vegetable valign="top" protein extracted from jack beans.

2. In the Eytex test, the degree of cloudiness ("damage") can be measured by a machine, a spectrophotometer, which is much more reliable.

Reconstructed human epidermis
1. This is a multi-layered human skin grown in the laboratory, which can be used to test skin irritancy.

2. There are various ways of measuring damage when an irritating product is applied to this test skin. For example, cells can be examined under the microscope.

3. Whatever method is used, the result can be measured accurately, unlike in animal studies where observers estimate the degree of swelling or redness.

Corneal cell lines
1. The SIRC is a continuous cell line of rabbit corneal cells. These are cells that are now grown in the laboratory, and no further rabbits are killed.

2. One problem with using cells from human corneas has been that these cells don't live for very long. Now researchers have found a way of not only increasing the number of these cells, but also extending their life span so that they can be studied in more detail.

3. Researchers used human corneas from an eye bank to grow the cells. This cell culture can be used not only to study eye irritation, but also wound healing, parasite infection, and radiation damage in the eye.

Neutral Red Uptake Test
1. Normal cells in culture readily absorb and hold this neutral red dye.

2. When the cell membrane, or the lysosomes inside the cell are damaged by an irritating chemical, dye will be lost through the leaky membranes.

3. Less dye will remain in the cell. A spectrophotometer is used to accurately measure how much has been lost.

Agarose Diffusion Test
1. In the Agarose Diffusion Test a small amount of agarose (a seaweed extract) is added to form a gel layer.

2. The substance diffuses through the agarose into the cell culture below.The irritancy of the substance is assessed by measuring the area, in millimetres, of dead cells under the filter paper, that is, cells that have lost their neutral red dye.

Microphysiometer
1. An irritating product will produce changes in the functioning of cells.

2. The microphysiometer is an instrument that detects very small changes in cell metabolism by measuring changes in the pH value of the cell culture nutrient fluid (changes in lactate, CO2 production).

Computer modelling
1. Expert computer systems can be used to predict the irritancy of new substances on the basis of what is already known about the irritancy of substances with a similar chemical structure.

Human studies
1. Some cosmetics companies already use human volunteers to test new formulations.

2. This is the most reliable test of all.

2. Alternative toxicity

For details about alternative toxicity, you may visit this website:
http://www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au/alternatives.html

Human cell cultures have several advantages in predicting toxicity:

1. They are human and so species differences are avoided;

2. They can be taken from the tissue that a particular test chemical is most likely to affect, for example the skin, or the liver;

3. They allow researchers to study how a substance causes damage to the cells, that is, why it is toxic;

4. They avoid causing pain and death to animals.

Reference: http://www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au/alternatives.html

Besides the alternatives of animals testing, there are some other kinds of alternatives.

1. Use organic product. Organic product doesn’t have any chemical ingredients, it won’t have any harmful effect to human.

2. Buy from the brands that against animals testing. The price of these brands are similar to the others. For example, Bobbie Brown Vs Clinique.
Here is a PDF file that show us a full list of the “Good and Bad” companies:

http://www.caringconsumer.com/pdfs/companiesDontTest.pdf

And one more reference:

http://www.caringconsumer.com/pdfs/companiesDontTest.pdf

“All individuals in society receive a lower payoff if all defected rather than cooperate.”--- According to the article “Motivational complexity of green consumerism”

If you keep on taking destructive actions, you will receive a lower pay off. Actually, we are not really benefited from the animal-testing.

1. Testing on animals only benefits big business
For details, you may click: http://www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au/articles.html

2. Animal testing is not really safe.
There are many drugs that are tested by animals, but they still have many side effects to people. Here are some examples: Amrinone, Birth control pills, Chloramphenicol, and Clioquinol, etc.
For details, you may click: http://www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au/articles.html

In fact, we know that it is difficult to change your habit of using the products that you have used for a long time. As human, we know that it is difficult to ask you to help others at a cost of your own. It is difficult to be an altruist. We understand and we will never blame on it. We only want you to know that you will loss nothing if you are willing to take the first step. Later, the “bad” companies may become a “good” one if you don’t buy from them. Then you can choose them again, right? We want to motivate you by our strategies and we hope that through our strategies, video and our blog, you will know that we are responsible for taking care of the animals. More importantly, you can do that only do a little. You won’t even be affected. Also, you may benefit from this.

1. More safety product. As we said, there are some unsafe products even they pass the animal testing. The alternative methods above are much more reliable actually.
2. Cruelty-Free Products are More Environmentally Friendly. Animal-tested products create unnecessary and harmful environmental waste and pollution.
3. Price is similar to the products that using animal testing

For more details: http://www.livingcrueltyfree.com/benefits-nonanimaltesting
For the price comparison: http://www.healthpricer.com/buy_health_products/buy_cruelty%20free_online/cruelty%20free.html

Let’s to be cruelty free!!!

There are more recommended links:
http://www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au/eternity.html
http://www.animalfreezone.co.uk/understanding-cruelty-free-labelling.html
http://search.caringconsumer.com/
http://www.gocrueltyfree.org/index.php
http://greenercomputing.com/print/27787%20(reference%20reading)
http://misskyou.blogspot.com/2009/09/join-me-in-cruelty-free-shopping.html
http://www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au/index.html

There are 2 related blogs:
http://misskyou.blogspot.com/2009/09/join-me-in-cruelty-free-shopping.html
http://www.blogher.com/animal-testing-whats-your-cabinets

Thank you all you gays comment on blog 2

2009-10-18T09:09:00.001-07:00

Thank you all blog visitors comment our blog and provide many valuable perspectives. Out of all visitors, I specially wanna thanks some visitors.

Thanks, Gaargi !

As you are not a local student, your point of view probably is different. Thanks for visiting our blog and give your unique comments. I am appreciated that you agree the point of culture of "slim". It is sure that displaying new fashion is used to hire some "slim" model to wear companies new clothes. It really affects so many girls around the world and they believe it is true. We can not solely believe anything spread from advertising. This trend can not continue anymore. Once again, thanks your comment.

About the irregular word in blog, we have already changed it. Hope you visit our blog next time :)

Thanks, Maserati !

After I read your comment, I find that you are so seriously to comment our blog and you provide a outline that suggest us to change. The comments are meaningful and these are the main problems we have. Now, we have improved the quality of blog.

Glad to have your comments. Hope see you next time~

Thanks 3430 lowbera !

I must say million of thank you towards you. As you provide a new ideas for us and, more important, you also post the link of website to let us know the fact of fur industries. We have no ideas on it. I strongly agree we have to protect animals, both wild animals and home animals. As a human being, we have to cherish animate plants and animals in all of the corner of world. You let me know more about what fur industries do in reality. It is time to consider not only how to protect the environment or how to decrease the temperature, but also insistently protect animal rights.

I cordially hope you can visit our blog again~ Thank you so much

Thanks all 2411 students comment our blog! The comment is really valuable to think more and helps us improve.

2009-10-03T07:38:00.000-07:00

Process of developing a “Kingdom of Fashion”

Burberry like so many global companies persistently develops market share around the world. Burberry designs new products attract and expand a new group of consumer as strategies, like Blue Berry in Japan. Up to now, Burberry proves that it is successful.

Step One: Start a local business - 19th-Century Origins

Founder Thomas Burberry starts its business for designing a more comfortable raincoat and he successfully developed a little reputation among locals in 1856.

Step Two: First try of entering new market - Late 19th and Early 20th Century

Burberry established its first foreign outlet in Paris in 1910 and soon in the United States and South America. In 1915, Burberry entered new Asian market – Japan.

Step Three: Continue to expand overseas market - In the 1980s and 1990s

Burberry continually emphasized on exports and Women’s and Children Apparel. Its export business increased dramatically during the 1980s. Overseas sales continued to grow by double-digit percentages in the early 1990s.

Step Four: A setback of development of Asian market - Late 20^th Century

Due to the Asian economic crisis, sales decreased and profits tumbled in its business. The company began to slow down its shipments to the Asian market and shut down three production facilities in UK.

“The goal is to turn the Burberry name into a brand as hip as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, or Prada."
[i]- June 1999 Daily News Record article. (3)

Step Five: Expansion in Worldwide

Burberry rebuilt Asian market as well as European and American markets. In Japan, Burberry started a new style that suit Japanese and even Asian. Burberry also featured new product lines including lingerie and swimwear.

Globalization

“Globalization (or globalisation) describes an ongoing process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a globe-spanning network of exchange. The term is sometimes used to refer specifically to economic globalization: the integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, and the spread of technology. However, globalization is usually recognized as being driven by a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural, political, and biological factors. The term can also refer to the transnational dissemination of ideas, languages, or popular culture.” (1)

It is a global current trend that well-developed and reputed companies attempt to expand market to global. Globalization phenomenon indeed consists of the above idea – to be a popular brand name in worldwide. Globalization can be defined as two different ways, which are fact and value according to the definition given by Davos Economic Forum in Switzerland. (2)

Globalization as a fact is the real economic ties, institutions, and realities that underlie a new economy. Also, Globalization as a value is further integration of markets, pools of capital, and industries.

Good Sides of Globalization

Globalization helps spread a new technology and business ideas. Take developing countries as an example, a global brand names shift to new market and, at the same time, they bring new technology. But it doesn’t mean that they bring the least and innovation technology to developing countries. I believe some secrets need to veal. Anyway, some residents in developing countries never had seen this kind of technology. It is important that provide ideas for them to know how to use it. May be it helps them to be a skilled worker; thereby it helps improve their living standard. Also, spreading new business ideas is similar to new technology. New perspectives of business come from foreign brand name, for example, Burberry open a retail in Shang Hai. Before that, Chinese probably don’t know what luxury goods, brand name are. They understand what the differences among the operation of local brand names and a real global brand name. To absorb and apply it to individual business such as the strategy of hiring employees, advertising promotion and so on.

For global brand, I agree that one of the good sides of globalization is that “the integration of developing economies into the main stream global economy has created amazing business opportunities for global brands.” (4) It is sure that global brands expand market share and customers by operating new retailer shop in different countries. It is indeed a golden opportunities for them.

Bad Sides of Globalization

For local brand, it makes harder of running a business because the business world becomes a “highly complex and highly competitive battleground for companies”. (5) Small local brands have to use a large amount of capital and human resources to compete those global brand names. As you know, building up reputation is not an easy task. In order to grab enough market shares, local brands must find their specialty and prepare for a long run “business battle”. Therefore, I agree globalization “made this global market an extremely complicated place to do business in.” (6)

Culture Identity

As successfully global brands, recognizing different culture identity is a must as culture identity can decide business whether it is able to stay or quit. I agree that “the term cultural identity refers to an individual’s sense of self derived … group that transmit and inculcate knowledge, beliefs, values, attitudes, traditions and ways of life.” – 7 The above minimize six segments need to concern clearly. The basic thing have to be careful is that respect other people culture and, at least, don’t insult it as it is a taboo of doing business.

Children begin to develop a sense of identity as individuals and as members of groups from their earliest interactions with others (McAdoo, 1993; Sheets, 1999a).

One of the most basic types of identity is ethnic identity, which entails an awareness of one’s membership in a social group that has a common culture. The common culture may be marked by a shared language, history, geography, and (frequently) physical characteristics (Fishman, 1989; Sheets, 1999a).

Globalization Strategies of Burberry that impact cultural identity

1. Customization

SUSUMU YOSHIDA states that “we need to be aware of significant differences between Eastern and Western thought in order to deeper understanding of intercultural communication gaps.”(8) Like Burberry, it is obviously that body structure of Asian is different from that of European and United States. Therefore, in order to suit the need of customers in Asian, Burberry starts two new product lines – Blue and Black Burberry. It is good example of why we have to know intercultural communication gaps.

Burberry is a British luxury fashion brand which has the select collections of apparel and accessories for men, women and kids. The company operates in markets throughout the world, with a balance across major geographic regions such as Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East, North America, Oceania and Russia. For the greater integration of global markets, the group adopted the strategies that can facilities the intercultural communication.

Example: Burberry Blue and Black Label for Japan

(9)

Burberry has different lines for different countries. We can know the members of the Burberry family from the above figure.

Burberry blue label and black label are for customized for Japan and Asian Countries. These two lines are licensed to a Japanese Company which calls SanYo Company (三陽商社). Sanyo owns and operates the Burberry flagship store in Tokyo and also two Burberry Blue and one Burberry Black stores. The two licence partners are jointly responsible for the wholesale distribution of the Burberry ranges to department stores and specialty stores across Japan. As part of their responsibility as licensees, both firms provide product, visual merchandising and sales staff to their department store customers.

To fit in the taste of Japanese, there are some adaptations made.

- Price. There is a large price range between Burberry Blue/Black Label and the Burberry London/Proprsum.

Here, we can see the price range even in the Yahoo action. The price of London is five times more than that of the Blue Label one even they are two very similar bags.

- Design. Black Label is mainly for men’s formal dressing. Blue Label is mainly for Asian Youngster. The design is much more colorful, casual and young. However, the design of London and Proprsum is mature, classic and conservative. There is a comparison. Guess which one is from Burberry London and which one is from Blue Label?

For more details, you may have a look of their official web sites.

BlueLabelhttp://www.burberry-bluelabel.com/index.html (10)

BlackLabel: http://www.burberry-blacklabel.com/ (11)

BurberryLondon: http://www.burberry.com (12)

A success customization of a market can make the brand more fit in the local culture. Because of Blue and Black Label, Burberry is not only a British Brand, but it is also a tailor made brand for Japan. Under collectivism system, like Japan, to be “Japan” is important. If you are “Japan” enough, people will like you and they will collectively support you to show their identity of being Japanese.

2. Social networking site

Burberry will launch a social networking site on October 2009. The site will feature users sending in pictures of themselves that wearing Burberry trench coats. There have already been more than 660,000 fans on Facebook. This site helps interaction between Burberry and its customers all around the world. Also, people can communicate with others that have similar branding preference. Through the sharing and communication, some norms and common values are formed. This is a main part of a sub-culture, or even a culture. Also, these values make how people think about who they are, i.e., identity. For example, the more the people join the site, the more the popular Burberry is. People will use its products to tell others that they are fashionable, and to fit in with their social groups. If you don’t know Burberry, you are not a “normal” person. To be “normal”, you will follow the trend.

3. Official website with multi-languages

There are many languages version of the official web site and online store of Burberry. Hong Kong people can shop and get the information they need with their native languages. Therefore, people can know more about Burberry. culture is not as board as we think sometime, culture can be found in a company as well. An official web site can share the company’s culture with the visitors. Under the mother language, sense of belonging can be built more easily. It is good for intercultural communication because information and cultural flow are speeded up since one of the biggest communication barriers was broken down.

4. World-famous top model for commercial and fashion show

To build up its international fashion brand image, Burberry launched a radically different advertising strategy that sought to change perceptions of Burberry through the use of leading models, such as Kate Moss and reputable fashion photographers, while retaining distinctly British themes as the content of these advertisements. The world leading model can help Burberry spread the British culture over the world. Also, human being likes to follow its idol to show confidence and self-confirmation, so the fans of the model will follow what their idols wear to become fashionable, specialty and confident. What is more, the use of these models, Burberry or even the world fashion industry makes people believe that “slim” is pretty. This changes people’s thoughts towards their identity. If they want to be popular, trendy and pretty, they need to buy clothes from Burberry or others high class fashion brand.

5. Recruitment

Expansion is not an easy task that needs to arrange human recourses in different region or countries. In recruiting employees, Burberry has a good strategy and I think Burberry really make good use of local recourses. It is easily to increases the awareness of locals. On the other side, it is able to decreases the conflict of intercultural communication. Burberry recruits purely on the basis of skills and experience and without regard to sex, race, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, age, religion, disability or sexual orientation. It entirely benefits of running a business.

6. Charity

Moreover, Burberry Foundation is developed in order to help poor and teenagers around all over the world; it cooperates with different local organizations such as Robin Hood in New York, Changing Yong Lives Foundation in Hong Kong. The mission of Burberry Foundation is to build up confidence and self-esteem through daily life and help build relationship among family, friends and community. More importantly, it encourages teenagers develop creation and make their dream to be true. It helps build up another kinds of reputation in those communities except for that of in business.

Burberry in HK

Actually, Burberry sees Hong Kong as a valuable marketplace as well. It did a lot here to draw attention and maintain its brand knowledge here. This make Burberry’s image and culture are deeply affecting Hong Kong. Here are some examples of what it did.

1. Sponsorship

In order to become one of the most important top brands in HK, Burberry has put much effort on advertising and sponsorship. For example, Burberry has sponsored the Hong Kong local movie, My Lucky Star. The clothing of the leading actress in the movie was all sponsored by Burberry. This can make Burberry more fit in the HK culture. Also, famous people can be the fashion leaders that can affect the local fashion culture. More people will like the England Burberry fashion. Meanwhile, more local brand will learn from this England design.

2. Localized Official Web Site

3. Sixteen Burberry shops in HK

There are sixteen Burberry London shops and counter in total even in a relatively small Hong Kong marketplace. It is penetrated in here and welcomed by the Hong Kong people. In its official web site, there is a detail Hong Kong map for visitors to find out the shop location easily. The products in Hong Kong are largely standardized with style, category and price. In the shops, local staff are hired to provide luxurious services to the customers.

Blue and Black Label are two lines that produced and designed in Japan. Blue is more casual and the black one is more formal. These two lines are more fit in to the Asian people’s body shape and their preferences. The price is a bit lower than Burberry’s other product line. So it can attract the region, like HK, that the living standard is lower the European one.

Burberry’s impaction on the culture identity in HK

Culture includes many elements such as food, buildings and beliefs. Fashion is also an important element of culture. Actually, Hong Kong does not have its own unique culture. As Hong Kong is an international city, our fashion is influenced by many other countries such as Japan and Korea. For teenagers, the fashion trend of Japan was strongly affected them. It is not surprised that we saw a girl who wears Lolita in the street. Also, there are many teenagers that follow the fashion trend blindly. They pursue some luxury brands such as Gucci and Burberry because of vanity. In certain extent, Burberry influences the fashion trend of Hong Kong unobtrusively and imperceptibly.

Moreover, there are many international luxury fashion opened their branches in Hong Kong. For examples, Gucci from Italy, DKNY from America and Burberry from England are all international fashion brands. All those brands represent the image of prestige and position in the society.

Burberry is a conservative and quiet fashion brand. Almost all of the Burberry’s products are based on tartan pattern as main design. In certain extent, Burberry aroused the preference of tartan pattern. But in fact, there are many substitutes of Burberry. For example, Dunhill is also a conservative England fashion brand. To show the prestige of ourselves, we can choose Louis Vuitton, Gucci’s products. So the introduction of Burberry in Hong Kong doesn’t affect the culture of Hong Kong much.

The branches in different countries of international brand can increase the unity of world. It is because we can see our familiar brand in different countries all over the world. But on the other hand, it just diversifies our choice of fashion brand. It doesn’t really affect the culture of Hong Kong. In fact, Burberry pours the new elements and new culture to the fashion culture of Hong Kong.

However, even Burberry didn’t affect Hong Kong’s culture comprehensively; it did affect part of the people, especially its fans and followers.

As we said above, Burberry is a prestige, conservative and classic brand. It is also fashionable, but it is not as stylish as the brands like DKNY or Gucci. Burberry is mature and a bit conservative. Its target market will mainly be the high class people which like conservative and moderate clothes rather than exaggerated one. When people wear Burberry, they will feel like that—rich, be respected, fashionable and mature. They wear in the Burberry style because they think they are the kind of people that suit the brand, which is their own knowledge about themselves, they think who they are, their own identity.

Suggestion

1. Co-operate with well-known charities.

Those non-profit charity organizations which cooperate with Burberry are not well-known enough. I suggest that if Burberry wants to increase awareness in societies, it should cooperate with some popular charities, such as Red Cross, World Vision, etc. Peoples believe that popular charities make better use of the donation money and have a clearer report than those unpopular charities to tell public about what they did. Also, popular charities like a global brand name have built up around the world. Normally, at the beginning, voluntary work can be easily accepted by local public rather than business. Therefore, in order to improve awareness of local, Burberry should first operate with popular charities through regularly sponsors or donate their work in different countries. It helps Burberry build positive image of social responsibility and even enter a new market.

2. Save animal and respect animal rights.

Burberry as a fashion house, fur industry use fur to make products. Some anti- animal fur organizations and supporters oppose Burberry to use real animal fur because one states that “To kill the animals without damaging their fur, trappers usually strangle, beat, or stomp them to death.” (13) As a result, animals must be killed in order to get beautiful and valuable fur. In China, Burberry uses a kind of dog fur which is called Raccoon dog fur that as a material of being a part of Burberry products. (14) Burberry has to change the material. Animals also have life; they are a part of nature, so we need to cherish them. One also argue the environment provide for animals are so harsh when they are caught. They live into “filthy wire cages, exposure to harsh weather conditions and survival without clean water, adequate food and space” (15) The truth is unbelievable and unacceptable. Burberry should use innovative technology to make some fur-like materials instead of real fur. We should consider the feeling of animals.

Reference:

1. Globalization – Wikipedia Bhagwati Jagdish. In Defense of Globalization. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization

2. Daily News Record article. June 1999

3. Randy Kluver. Oklahoma City University. Globalization, Informatization, and Intercultural Communication http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol3/Iss3/spec1/kluver.htm

4. Martin Roll. Venture Republic. Cross-cultural branding and leadership http://www.venturerepublic.com/resources/Cross-cultural_branding_leadership.asp

5. Martin Roll. Venture Republic. Cross-cultural branding and leadership http://www.venturerepublic.com/resources/Cross-cultural_branding_leadership.asp

6. Martin Roll. Venture Republic. Cross-cultural branding and leadership http://www.venturerepublic.com/resources/Cross-cultural_branding_leadership.asp

7. Daphne A. Jameson. Journal of Business Communication. Reconceptualizing Cultural Identity and Its Role in Intercultural Business Communication P.207

http://job.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/44/3/199

8. SUSUMU YOSHIDA, Managing Director, Sumitomo Chemical Asia Pte Ltd. Vital Speeches of the day. P.710

9. The Burberry Product Brand / Model. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/insight/

10. Blue Label. http://www.burberry-bluelabel.com/index.html

11. Black Label. http://www.burberry-blacklabel.com/

12. Burberry London. http://www.burberry.com

13. Tell Burberry to stop selling fur. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/tell-burberry-to-stop-selling-fur

14. JIM SHI. Could animal activists soon be sporting Burberry plaid? http://www.animalliberationfront.com/News/2006_04/BurberryBansFur.htm

15. Tell Burberry to stop selling fur.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/tell-burberry-to-stop-selling-fur

16. (Further information about animal rights) http://fur.elehost.com/

Thanks for your comments. Come Come Come.

2009-09-23T07:36:00.001-07:00

Thanks for your support. It is so great that there are readers of our blog. In general, there are few main opinions and suggestions.

1. Why trust is an innovative idea in intercultural communication?
2. Become more special more than only a summary of Cindy’s blog.
3. Tips that Cindy gave are not achievable.
4. More attractive and interesting pictures and other medium can be uploaded.
5. Titles in different colors or make keywords bold or/italic
6. Add Recommendation

Let us answer your questions and share our opinion with you.
- Why trust is an innovative idea in intercultural communication?
Trust is a basic element for building good relationship, just like what 2411thankful said. It is not an innovative idea in building relationship and communication. However, it is sometimes being ignored in our topic, intercultural communication. To overcoming intercultural communication problems and culture differences, we always focus on the “differences”. We try to know more about the “differences” and then adapt the “differences” when we face different people. Also, 2411thankful mentioned “respect”. Yes, it is a very important factor in intercultural communication. But what 2411thankful talked about is “respect the differences”, it also focuses on “differences”.
Actually, Cindy has reminded all of her readers to think about how important trust is in order to have a smooth intercultural communication. Honestly, we cannot know all of the culture deeply. Um…it is possible but it is very hard to do so. So how can we have effective communication with foreigners when we do not really know the “differences”? Cindy inspired us that---build trust. Trust can solve many problems that cannot be solved by “knowledge”. That is the reason that United Nations agree trust is an innovative idea.

- Become more special more than only a summary of Cindy’s blog.
Actually, we agree that we should make our blog become our “property”. So we will upload more personal things in our blog later, e.g., our own experiences of intercultural communication. We hope we can have more inspiring factors for you to read.

- Tips that Cindy gave are not achievable.
3430_voyage said Cindy’s tips are not achievable, for example, building trust is a very difficult task to do. Yes, it is very difficult, but that’s do not mean it is not achievable. At least, Cindy can do that we believe. To be honest, if you want to be success, you must do something the others cannot do. If it is easy to learn all the Cindy’s tips and skills, everyone can be as success as her, right? After reading Cindy’s blog, we hope all of us can apply the skills in daily life, practice make perfect, we can do it if we work harder.

For the rest opinion about our blog’s appearance, we have already listened and improved.

To be honest, we need your suggestion so much. It is because the more the people are, the more the great ideas we can receive. It is so frequent that you guys can think of something that we can never think about. So we really appreciate your opinions. Communication should be like that, two ways and interactive. We hope you can keep on visiting our blog and leaving me comments. And we will try our best to answer your questions and improve ourselves. Of course, we welcome any kind of comment, so just feel free to say anything you want. Also, we will be very happy if you can ask more friends to come~haha, let us have more exchange of ideas!!!

First shot: Analyse the blog of Cindy King

2009-09-10T00:05:00.000-07:00

1. Self-Introduction

I am Wendy, a year 2 GBSM student. I enjoy travel to everywhere as long as I am available, like the latest summer I just visited Taiwan with my friends. Recognizing different culture is the main purpose of travelling. Hope this course broaden my knowledge and beneficial of preparing for exchange.

I am Hilda, also a

year 2 GBSM student. I like the wes

tern and Japanese culture. I like their movies and fashion the most. So it is the main way for me to get know of their habit and their way of thinking. Actually, I am quite talkative as well. I enjoying talking with and meeting people all around the world. I can understand more about the cultural differences by communicating more with them.

My name is Howard. I am also a GBSM student. I love my program so much because of a word – Global. Recently, Globalization is a hottest topic around all over the world. How to have a widen view that different from others depending on the intention of learning. I desire ot experience different culture when I am still young. I hope this course enable to improve the recognition of intercultural perspective.

2. Introduction of our group

Our group name: United Nations

United Nations is famous organiza

tion, which integrates independent countries around all over the world. Different countries assign represe

ntative to attend committee of United Nations. Some of them dress their national costume represent their culture. We use “united nations” to be our group name as a symbol of integrating, recognizing and accepting different culture. More important, through learning different intercultural communication, we know more about the advantage and disadvantage of other culture.

3. Introduce the blog we find

URL: http://cindyking.biz/

The blog mainly focus on how to improve marketing and sales by communication. Improving Intercultural communication is the way to do so. Author mentions several useful tips about building up self-confidence and having awareness of other peopl

e that have different culture background. By providing different tips, it is tightly related to Marketing and sales and knows how importance of intercultural communication.

4. Authorship

Cindy King is a resident of five countries who has been working in the field of international sales and marketing more than 25 years. She helps businesses get more international sales and do successful marketing globally. She has four years working with Muslims; three years with Jews and one year with Catholics. That is why she has deep understanding of different cultures.

Cindy is not only an experienced marketer, but she is also a talented linguist. Besides her mother tongue, English, she can speak in French and German fluently. Also, she formerly dabbled in Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swiss and Malay. This helps her communicating with the people of different cultures much easier.

5. Viewership

The main viewers of the blog are the people who are interested in marketing and intercultural communication, like students, marketers, etc. Also, the blog is one

of the tool that Cindy used to show her profession and get clients, so the bosses of different business are the main target readers. We can know that in the web page of FAQ. More importantly, her main targeted viewers are Internet users. Otherwise, she can deliver nothing through Internet and blog.

6. Motivation behin

d the creation of the blog

This blog is a place where Cindy can share how to develop cultural and international skills for international marketing. She can also express her own view about international marketing and intercultural communication. What is more, people all over the world can read her blog in Internet, so that she can promote her profession and ideas. She will get more international clients if there are more and more people read her blog, agree with her view and pay attention to her. It is a way of pull marketing, which can help Cindy promoting herself with low cost.

On the other hand, it is good to use blog as a sharing channel because people all over the world an access and read it easily. There is no national boundary in the world of Internet. People can leave their comments, share and communicate with Cindy directly and quickly. It is a convenient, interactive and immediate channel for people to communicate.

7. Succeeds of the blog in promoting creativity and innovation

The blog is able to facilitate creativity and innovation. First of all, it gives 8 tips ab

out the intercultural communication. The blog has mentioned an innovative idea – Trust in intercultural communicati

on. We need to first be trustworthy before we build trust in others. So we can have trust-building relationship a

mong different parties. Also, we need to learn to communicate with oth

ers that have different cultural values. We shouldn’t fear aggression because of the cross-cultur

al difference. It focuses on the importance of “trust”. This idea is usually ignored by many people. But it is an innovative idea.

Second, in terms of creativity, the writer chooses to use blog rather than textbooks as distributio

n channels. The readers can give the feedbacks immediately. It is a two-way channel that allows the writer and the reader to communicate effectively. Moreover, the reader can share different views in the blog. Since the writer updates the blog everyday, it can get a closer relationship with the readers.

Even the blog is mainly talking about business, it is undeniable that intercultural communication is vital for business. This blog can promote creativity and innovation about intercultural communication.

8. Failure of the blog in promoting creativity and innovation

The blog has some rooms to improve in terms of promoting creativity and innovation. Since the blog only mentioned about the cultural difference, it hasn’t explain about the details of the differences such as the culture of different countries. So the reader may only know that they need to improve it. The writer doesn’t provide any practical suggestion for the reader. By adding the practical suggestions, more reader will be benefited.

9. Why like or dislike the blog

The tips of intercultural communication are clear. Author highlights the main points of each tip in red as well as some outlines are provided. It lets viewers understand clearly what she is going to say.

Viewers are allowed t

o sign up their email in order to get further tips. It is useful that author knows what questions viewers will ask and viewers are encouraged to raise their questions through sending email.

Also, there are many links that can link to the author’s other Internet community web site, e.g. Facebook. Readers can know her more if they want to and this can build the relationship between the author and the readers.

However, there are almost no pictures to be included in blog. The whole page of blog is only written by word without intersting pictures and the design of blog is so simplified. If blogger adds some pictures or videos, the blog would be more attractive.

10. Suggestions for improvement

Actually, the blog is great since there are many marketing knowledge and intercultural affairs which is analyzed from different aspects and point of view. But it is a bit boring as there are not many pictures and videos. Also, it is not user-friendly for a reader whose native language is not English. So we suggest Cindy may upload more photos and videos to the blog. It will be more attractive and effective to share the ideas. Communication is not only by languages, but also other methods like body languages and pictures, etc.

11. Recommended Posts

Here are some posts that are useful and meaningful for us to read.

A.) http://cindyking.biz/trust-in-cross-cultural-communication-–-tip-16/

This post is talking about the trust is based on honesty. Trust is important for every relationship. And it can make our conversation more effective. Nobody wants to do business with a company they cannot trust. In the same meaning, nobody wants to build a relationship with someone they cannot trust. So this post is meaningful for us to read. If we can do it, we will be a successful person no matter in any aspect.

B.) http://cindyking.biz/trust-in-cross-cultural-communication-–-tip-13/

Trust is partly based on them getting what they expect and what they promised. There are many cultural differences between different nations and different people may use the same words but understand different meanings. So we need to clearly explain what we promised and know their expectation. And the most important is to do what we promised. This post will be useful for us to know more about ‘Promise’.